I have been failing at crocheting for years now. I would try, it would look terrible, I would get mad, rip it out, and claim I would NEVER crochet again but I always tried again (and then the process would start all over). I’m serious when I say this has been going on for years now. I just wanted to just do something simple like a scarf. I’d watch videos, I’d have my mother attempt to teach me but it always ended in me getting mad and giving up.
Skip forward to one year ago when I was in Georgia visiting my brother, sister in law, niece and nephew for nearly 3 weeks - I decided to give it a try again. This time I decided to go all in - I was going to make a blanket. Looking back I don’t know what I was thinking, I had never even done a dozen consecutive crochet rows before, how on earth was I going to make a blanket?
We took a trip to Joann Fabrics where I picked out a beautiful, dark purple yarn and a crochet hook. After this initial trip, I had taken countless more trips of the fabric store to get more yarn and at one point I had bought their entire supply so I resulted to buying it online. Persistence and dedication were on my side this time around because less than 2 months later I had made a huge (and ridiculously warm) crocheted blanket. And boy was I proud of myself!
I was on a crocheting roll and you couldn’t make me stop. I decided, again, to make ANOTHER blanket. This time I had decided on a muti-colored granny square blanket. I spent hours on Pinterest looking at possible color options and different granny square possibilities. I ended up deciding on a simple granny square. Then I had to decide on yarn. I knew this blanket was going to take many skeins so I didn’t want to choose a ridiculously expensive yarn but I also didn’t want an itchy, ugly yarn. So, yet again, I did more research. I came to the conclusion that I could buy Red Heart yarn - it was cheap, came in a ton of colors, it wasn’t itchy, and I found several articles online on how to soften the yarn.
Off to Joann Fabrics I went again. I spent 45 minutes in the yarn aisle trying to choose 9 complementing color. In the end, I decided on different shades of blues, greens, neutrals, and a pop of purple.
Before I started this project I found an awesome video on YouTube posted by Fiber Flux, Episode 112: How to Crochet A Classic Multicolor Granny Square. I used some old yarn and practiced and practiced until I got it right (this took several hours and lots of cursing).
Finally I was ready to start - on April 4th I started this long (very long) and painful process. Not only did I have to crochet every square (which took about 45 minutes each) but I also had to plan where each square was going to go (I didn’t want two squares next to each other that finished with the same color), I had to keep track of each square so I didn't have two squares that ended up the same, I had to connect each square together, and then to finish the blanket I had to put a border around the entire thing.
Now don't get my wrong, I’m super proud of myself for making this blanket but I was starting to think that I was going to develop carpal tunnel during this process. After 20 longs weeks, 111 squares, 5,600 minutes, 17 skeins of yarn, I finished this blanket.
Each square consists of 5 rows in varying colors. I connected the squares using a contrasting color and by using the Lattice Method (which I found instructions for on Carina's Craftblog). This blanket ended up being slightly larger than a full sized bed (much larger than I planned). Its heavy and warm - perfect for a winter night in New Hampshire.
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| I would label this a success. |
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